A DESTITUTE man has been living rough in a makeshift secret shelter hidden inside one of the main stands at the home of football giants Aston Villa.

A DESTITUTE man has been living rough in a makeshift secret shelter hidden inside one of the main stands at the home of football giants Aston Villa.

While thousands of fans flocked to see the team’s highly-paid Premier League stars perform on the pitch, the ‘hermit of the Holte End’ was just yards from the action snuggled away in the shanty town-style dwelling hidden in the bowels of the Villa Park stadium.

Despite high-tech CCTV systems scanning most of the 42,000-seater ground and an army of security guards on round-the-clock duty, the terrace tramp managed to stay undetected until a routine sweep of the stadium by groundstaff, according to club insiders.

The club has said it has no record of the incident, but security officers are believed to be investigating how he managed to enter and leave the ground without arousing suspicion.

The bearded man, a UK passport holder in his late 30s or 40s, had constructed his secret hideaway using discarded cardboard and other waste items. It is not known how long he was in the ground.

It is thought he was able to sneak into the stadium during darkness without being seen and leave his hideout before staff arrived for work the following morning. He obtained food by forcing his way into kiosks inside the stand and obtaining scraps from items left by supporters on matchdays.

The homeless man, who was apparently well-known by drinkers at pubs around the stadium, has now vanished from the area. Regulars at the nearby Aston Hotel said a dishevelled-looking man was often seen in the neighbourhood.

“I know who he is but we’ve not seen him for a few days,” said one drinker. “No-one believed him when he claimed he was actually living at the Villa.

“It’s amazing how he managed to escape detection for so long.”

An Aston Villa spokesman said the club had no record of the incident or the mystery fan’s existence.

A West Midlands police spokesman said the only reports they had received involved security teams reporting a drunken man behaving suspiciously near the ground at the end of last month.